Susan Rice, America's ambassador to the UN, and the woman that Obama wants to succeed Hillary Clinton at State, is meeting with John McCain, at her request, to discuss what the fuck his problem is McCain's concerns over her response to the Benghazi attack. If you need the background on McCain'...

Having been away at the weekend in a particularly beautiful corner of our green and pleasant land I didn't get a chance to write something about Friday night's extravaganza, and now that I do you're all sick of reading about it. But indulge me. I can remember the moment when I first started ...

In a recent debate (don't recall which one, there's been so many), Romney was asked whether he would release his income tax returns as his father did in 1967, setting the precedent for such disclosure. Romney's expression was amazing; his features softened at the mention of his father's name, and suddenly he was no longer Romneybot.
Pundits need to be careful when comparing 1967-1968 to 2011-2012. Tumultuous doesn't begin to describe those years. I was 14 years old and devastated when Robert F. Kennedy was fatally shot immediately after winning the California winner-take-all primary in June, 1968 (just two months after Martin Luther King's assassination). Among the general populace, the most popular Republicans were moderate Yankees (Nelson Rockefeller and George Romney). I'm still not sure how Richard Nixon got the 1968 Republican nomination, but his closest competitor was George Romney.

This is the moment that George Romney, Mitt Romney's father, destroyed his own political career: The interview is from 1967. Until then, Romney, a popular governor of Michigan, was a very credible contender for the 1968 Republication presidential nomination. But after he allowed that word, 'bra...

Why don't those in power who are against this costly Afghanistan folly emphasize that it's a landlocked country, which means our supply lines are *dependent* on other countries (e.g., Pakistan) to get materials in and out of the country? A better analogy would be Laos, another landlocked country, which did suffer our meddling during the cold war era.
We need to get out of the war business and start focusing on our country's future by investing/subsidizing efforts that will pay off in the near and long-term future (education, infrastructure, incentives for those young people most at risk). Thousands of lives sacrificed, billions of dollars wasted; the nightly news should be responsible enough to air a short clip of one KIA every night until the public pressure to get the heck out the war business becomes a priority that the military cannot continue to justify.

Can't get enough of these Gates exit interviews (and the more I read them, the happier I am that I didn't ask to do one). Newsweek places this disturbing observation deep, deep down in its addition to the genre: Gates acknowledges a historical similarity to the Vietnam War. “There is one parall...

Wow. Wonderful post.
As someone who is (Mad Men's) Sally Draper's age, I'm surprised that people who weren't born yet are even remotely interested in that era. Maybe it's a British trait, with rock 'n roll from that era existing as background noise. Here in the U.S., not so much. I stopped listening to the radio in the 1970s because there was virtually no rock on the air (think disco).

Photo: Patrick Lichfield, St Tropez 1971 I recently finished reading Keith Richards's autobiography, Life. I loved it. It's not your average celebrity memoir. For one thing, he's got a truly amazing story to tell, of a boy from Dartford who fell in love with the strange fruit of the blues and ...

Barack's mother always looks so protective of him in all of the pictures I've seen. It couldn't have been easy for her, and it's heartbreaking to think of how joyful she would have been to see him elected president she'd be 68 now).
I truly believe that the "birther" nonsense would never have picked up steam if she were alive today (mom and apple pie & all that). Unfortunately for all Americans, this vacuum has allowed our media to feed Trump's ginormous ego.
The bright side is that "the Donald" has pushed Sarah Palin off of the American public's radar, and they will soon tire of his yelling and egomania. Just like with Sarah Palin's whiny victimization, who could possibly want such a bellicose president?

Niall Ferguson was on "Morning Joe" today.
11-minute, 34-second video (don't know if accessible outside US):
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/ns/msnbc_tv-morning_joe/
Notably, after Niall's interview was over, Joe Scarborough made the offhand comment that he thought that Niall didn't believe the things he said. I agree; I've seen Niall a few times before, but I was taken aback by how agressively he made such points as:
To Mika Brzezinski, co-host:
"You could be forgiven for thinking that [viewing last week's Egypt results favorably]" (how generous of him)
At around the 3 minute mark, he sounds like Glenn Beck, vigorously contending that the Muslim Brotherhood stands for the "imposition and enforcement of Sharia law and the restoration of the caliphate."
At the 7:30 mark he pompously relates how he was at a security conference in Tel Aviv last week, and was surrounded by people dismayed by the amateurism of the Obama foreign policy team.
Finally, he says Obama has the potential to be worse than Bush, who achieved "some success in Afghanistan."
When the program returned after commercial break, Joe jokingly asked if Niall would be allowed to return to the Harvard campus.

Frank Wisner The New York Times has a great backstory report on the White House's response to the Egypt crisis. It makes me think that some of the hesitancy the president showed during this time was down to the negotiation of very different viewpoints within his team about how to handle this. ...

Ian,
Is the "fox rather than a hedgehog" a British idiom? Are hedgehogs bold? They look very cute (and tiny) in the pics I've seen. Sadly, no hedgehogs in California.
Barring cataclysmic natural disaster(s), events unfolding in Egypt will surely launch the biggest stories of 2011.

Almost exactly three years ago Barack Obama drew a very pointed contrast between Ronald Reagan and two other presidents. Reagan, argued Obama, "changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not, and Bill Clinton did not." What seemed to be an ad lib was in fact calcuated t...

Ian,
I don't know if UK viewers can watch MSNBC videos, but last night's 14-minute Rachel Maddow opening segment was an eye-opener for me.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/#41283983
She's so good at supporing her arguments. In this case, she convincingly persuades that Obama has shifted public perception of what the "center" is, and its to left of where the "center" has been perceived for years.
I especially appreciate what she has to say about Eisenhower.
Mark Knoller (CBS Radio) tweeted late last year:
http://www.twitlonger.com/show/7q26vk
On Thursday 30th December 2010, @markknoller said:
Most noteworthy recess appointments:
Pres. Eisenhower made 3 recess appointments to the US Supreme Court including:
-Chief Justice Earl Warren (1953)
-Associate Justices William Brennan (1956)
-and Associate Justice Potter Stewart (1958).
Each later received Senate confirmation.
This is remarkable! Warren & Brennan were the liberal lions of the 20th mid-century Supreme Court.

For most viewers, the 2011 State of the Union was all about the salmon.This wordcloud illustrates the answers given by listeners to America's National Public Radio, when they were asked, a few minutes after Obama's address, to describe it in three words. For those of you wondering why on earth...